Top 10 Films of 2025 (Pt. 2) with Alison Willmore and Michael Phillips

31:22Yes, yes. Each section kind of ends with essentially like being like, here are the characters. Yeah. Which, and it's actually something I think is very deliberate. I mean, My Undesirable Friends is a reference to the fact that when Laktev first went to Moscow, it was to, she arrives in like the fall of 2021. And the idea is she's going to make a documentary about the fact that Putin's government has started labeling dissenters, like basically mostly independent journalists, as foreign agents. And once you are named a foreign agent, you have to continually basically put this asterisk on yourself.

31:56And before every commercial break on this TV Reign channel that a lot of people work for, they have to keep putting this disclaimer up, being like, we've been designated foreign agents who are basically being paid by outside forces to create dissent. You have to just keep saying that. It's ridiculous. And today, Daniel Sotnikov is also an agent.

32:42bit of a relationship with the idea of a sitcom. It has a giant cast of characters and it really exists within their space. So much of this movie is within like a workplace or within various dinner parties and New Year's celebrations and gatherings that they have, these different independent journalists that make up the cast of subjects that they have where they talk about what's happening. But I think that one of the things that this longer runtime earns is that you watch as all of these different people who are very savvy about the realities of their government slowly have to start to realize that things are kind of locking down more and more, and there is going to come a point where they are going to have to decide whether they can remain in the country.

33:30You know, it is a bit like, you know, a frog boiling metaphor. You're watching all of these people start to wonder at what point they are no longer that they have been essentially indulged by the regime, allowed to have dissenting viewpoints only within this like very kind of like within a context where the regime knows they think they could just crush them at any time as much as soon as they decided they needed to. But yeah, it also I think it's got a whole bunch of incredibly compelling journalists that it follows. And it also So it has something that I think is a luxury that documentaries have not had for a long time, which is that it's not made with a set ending in mind.

34:13Like Locktiff goes out there and catches this thing happening as, you know, does not expect to catch it and follows it. And events and the subjects dictate where the film goes, you know. And I think so much of the reality of nonfiction funding has been like, oh, you go out and you film like a competition or a semester or something like that. because that's you have a set way you know you know what you're gonna get and this this movie feels so alive with the events that are happening uh and and also like increasing the increasing danger that everyone including lock dev is is put in uh i think it's like a thrilling upsetting movie and it is also like obviously one that has certain resonance for us here um as as various forces in media and elsewhere kind of are silenced, you know, by the government.

35:03I mean, it's stunning. It's also the easiest way to kind of just, you know, assess its topicality or relevance, I guess, just to say that. But it is stunning just to hear all these different people on camera just saying, you know, for 20 years, we've had this monster growing in front of our eyes. This is a quote, whom we all fed with our silence and our passivity. And then somebody else says, and this is from some of the 2022 footage, arrests everywhere, masked, special forces, just sweeping people up. Sound familiar? And then somebody talks about this overwhelming feeling, a feeling of shame for being part of this country and for such a president.

35:46And it's just, you know, it's a little bit of a bulletin to the near future, our own. Not all entirely parallel, obviously. But, you know, it's also like, you know, in a completely found footage sort of way, it is very funny in the most dire sort of Slavic sense of humor. You know, I love it. Anyway, just somebody outside a police station, somebody's waiting for a friend who apparently seemingly never comes. And she is really upset. And she just says, can you hug me, please? I feel so scared. And somebody who has just been a detainee who has just been released says, oh, don't worry about it. Believe me, everything will get worse.

36:31and it's I mean it's you know you wouldn't get those moments if you didn't spend many many minutes in the car with somebody two people talking listening just reflecting on what what's going on how much worse is it going to get and yeah everything you say Alice is true it's like Frederick Wiseman's longer films you just get you have to completely do an internal rhythm adjustment that sometimes means you chunk it out you know and I I had, it was a busy time and I, but I was, you know, I chunked it out. I saw it in like four or five, roughly on the episode, you know, schedule. There was basically five episodes, but I'll tell you, man, the last 30, 40 minutes, it's, the suspense, it's built by investing all this time and these people you've come to know, you know, in Moscow and in some cases, you know, briefly in Ukraine and just what, what is the fate?

37:26I mean, we'll, we'll find, it's really, really astonishing to me. So I mean, just for those last 40 minutes alone, it's in my top 10. The sense of humor you both are talking about is so crucial. And the suspense as well, Michael, because we're watching it the whole time. We don't know exactly what the fate of these characters is, but we know what the fate of the country is. We know what's coming. And I don't begrudge anyone for their humor or sort of how they're handling all of this. But you're watching it the whole time thinking they they know the indulgence you spoke to, Allison, that that they they know deep down that at some point the fist is going to come crushing down and they are not going to be able to be on air anymore.

38:13And they're probably going to be all fleeing the country as fast as they can. But until then, all they can do is sort of laugh and make Putin jokes and keep fighting the fight and going on air and posting things on Instagram. And there is a point in the movie where then everything goes from there's no joke anymore and now it's real. And that's when things get really intense. Yeah. And I did want to, I mean, there are most of the subjects are women who are just also like very funny and charismatic young women. But I will say also the film kind of like introduces, but eventually kind of finds itself centering around one at the end, Ksenia Mbaravnova, who's just like so young and I think makes that whole final part so heartbreaking.

39:05like the reference point she keeps reaching for is harry potter you know and you're like oh right you're like 23 years old like um you know like what kind of metaphors can we come up with for what it feels like to be the kind of like ragtag group of people fighting against this enormous oppressive monolithic force and you're like harry potter yeah i think it's actually a different character who references potter earlier right it says that's true i watched harry potter as a kid this other older character says, I couldn't understand why so many people couldn't overthrow one bald guy who's been ruling for 20 years.

39:41And this is off TikTok or something, and she says, now I understand it, referring to Putin. So yeah, it's a great journalism movie. It just is. Yes, 100%. There's a lot of journalism movies that aren't, and this is truly one of the greats. Yeah. Unfortunately, a movie we're praising and is a must-see that does not currently have a digital release date that we're aware of, but we'll keep an eye out. You should keep an eye out for My Undesirable Friends, Part 1, Last Air in Moscow. We're going to go now to a voicemail from Keith Phipps. He is from our sister podcast, The Next Picture Show, also from The Reveal, the great substack that he writes with Scott Tobias.

40:25And he is going to go to bat for a film that has come up in passing, but no one has really just talked about this film as their favorite film of the year. Let's hear from Keith. Hello, FilmSpotting people. This is Keith from The Next Picture Show. My favorite movie of the year is Train Dreams, and I actually kind of knew it was going to be in January when I saw it while attending Sundance. Virtually, I left it thinking, you know, if I see another film this good this year, it's going to be a pretty good movie year. And you know what? It was a pretty good movie. I had a lot of contenders at my end of the year.

41:02But in the end of it, I was just left kind of haunted by its vision of one man's life in a particular moment in American history and a particular part of the world and his own sort of grasping attempts to understand what it all means. I loved it. I've seen it three times now, and I will probably watch it again before too long. And, you know, like I said, a lot of other great films this year, but that's the one that stayed with me. All right. Thanks, everyone. Have a great 2026. Thank you, Keith, for choosing Train Dreams. That is yet another 11 through 20 of mine. That one is firmly ensconced in my 11 through 20 movie Michael and I saw together in Iowa City.

41:44Third shout out to the Refocus Film Festival. That was the opening night movie of that festival. And that now is going to bring us to our next Consensus Choice. Michael, you're all about Consensus, the third movie in a row that you have in common with someone. It's my number five. It's your number six. It just speaks to your impeccable taste, obviously. It actually speaks to my need for consensus. Of course. Well, there's that, too. This is the latest from director Park Chanuk, and it's called No Other Choice. I said Lauren's heart was desperate. he doesn't come anywhere close to Lee Byung-hun's Yu Man-su in Park Chan-hoek's latest film.

42:31This is based on Donald Westlake's novel, The Axe, and it's about a man who has had the same job at a paper company for 25 years. Past and present, the point of fracture here, he is not just someone who his entire professional life has been devoted to paper. he was pulp man of the year. That has to count for something, right? Surely that carries some weight. It signifies his status, and there should be some dignity and respect that his company, Solar Paper, will always treat him with, except that an American company buys them out, guts the workforce, including his job and the indignity that follows and the choices he has to make.

43:22This movie, I saw Roofman much later, but these two movies have something in common in terms of characters for similar decisions, making really bad choices. The choices he makes to restore his pride, his income, his family's material resources, his family's happiness. I'm not going to spoil them, though this is a case where I've seen a few comments about the film here and there. I know from the trailer, this is all stuff that's covered in plot synopses, but I just don't really want to spoil it because I didn't know. Michael, I didn't know where this movie was going to go once it started. I had no idea those choices that this character was going to make.

44:04And so for my part anyway, I'm going to let people discover it. But let's just say it's a black comedy. And Park navigates the black comedy so deathly. He gets us laughing at this man. Sometimes we're recoiling in shock, all while still somehow retaining some sympathy for him. I just think he's such a master as a filmmaker in terms of that tone. The opening sequence sets us up for this fall for his fall. It shows us how perfect, how idyllic things are. The scene, it should be so heavy handed and in its own way it is, right? It actually includes him saying this husband, father, responsible, dedicated worker saying, I've got it all, right?

44:53You know, when a man says in a movie, I've got it all, something tragic is about to happen. He says, I've got it all. And the scene ends with him embracing his two children and his wife in a group hug. And somehow instead of being - Not going to work out. No, it's not. But instead of it being heavy handed, it just takes on this fable-like quality. And the brilliant colors and the brisk editing throughout, it all just heightens it. And this was my choice for best edited film of the year. They're just some ingenious match cuts and other types of transitions, quite frankly, without breaking it down frame by frame, I don't even know how to describe some of the editing choices, the technical choices that are being made and, and what is actually going into how, how they're being performed.

45:42And there, there is no spoilers. There is such a great comic irony at the core, at the end of this movie, but also at the core of this movie, because this man's entire sense of self is defined by his job. And rather than find a way to redefine himself. And in fairness to him, there is effort and it's extremely difficult to do. But in this, this fracture between past and present, he commits himself only to restoration. All he, all he wants to do is everything he can to get his old life back. His, his old identity back. There's, there's no possibility of a new way, even though he's able to look at other men in similar positions and point out how absurdly stubborn they are for their refusal to move on.

46:29He can see it in other people, but he can't see it in himself. That's the delicious kind of comic irony of it. And Park just, he exposes, he devilishly exposes the dark calculus of power here in this movie. The title, right? Showing how necessity becomes the perfect alibi for mischief and corruption, whether it's in back rooms or it's in living rooms or boardrooms or battlefields it applies across the board and and this film touches on all of it i think it's brilliant it's my number five that's it's my i mean i i think it's super solid really i just great and it's also a this film the fact that we had two films that had of such quality very different weapons and and no other choice to have films that suddenly take this primary interest in some of the most shameless, over-the-top slapstick that is so brilliantly filmed.

47:27It just seems like an inevitable kind of outgrowth of the escalating, well, body count. We can say that much without giving too much away. And everything else. And it's a great reminder when you see a director that confident to just, let's not, this film doesn't need to be a certain type of, you know, kind of crime drama or portrait of this. And it's been adapted a couple times, right? I hadn't seen the previous film adaptation. I'd read the novel, but, you know, it's a great, you know, it was set in, I think, small, medium-sized market in Pennsylvania somewhere, kind of, I think, and originally back when it was written back in the 90s.

48:11But it's eternally relevant, this idea of how do you handle a layoff? And this is not, I wouldn't advise that people follow it as sort of an instruction manual. No. But it is an instruction manual for viewers and maybe other filmmakers about how the value of just absolutely discombobulating your audience can be your highest mission. It's great, right to the end. This film, if it hasn't been on your radar or you are possibly hearing about it for the first time, that's fine. Just getting a release here in the United States at the end of December. But Park Chanuk, Old Boy, The Handmaiden, Decision to Leave, I think all three of those movies were on my top ten list of those years.

48:56So I guess I'm a fan. You can add this one to the mix. Christmas Day, I think, is when that movie comes out in limited release and then will expand in 2026. maybe one, Josh, that we can give a full review to. We'll see how the January schedule shakes out. Movies you might be able to check out for free right now as a Regal Unlimited member. Marty Supreme, number nine on Alison Wilmore's list, an 11 through 20 pick for me. Incredible performance from Timothee Chalamet that is playing right now at Regal. And we've talked a little bit about some of these picks. We've highlighted some of these repertory movies, the limited engagements, Josh, that Regal has been showing at some of their theaters.

49:42And I'm looking at regmovies.com, and they have a limited engagement right now for its, what is it? It's 40th anniversary? It's 30th. Okay, only 30 years. Shouldn't age it like that. 30th anniversary of a movie. I somehow, I can't believe I'm admitting this. I have somehow never seen this film, despite the fact that it stars two incredible actresses, including one who I've always claimed to be a huge, huge fan of. And I may have to rectify this now by seeing it on the big screen, getting a chance to see it on the big screen at a regal cinema. Sense and Sensibility. Ang Lee that's a way to do it great director too Kate Winslet the actress I'm referring to the great Emma Thompson never seen Sense and Sensibility and if you're like me maybe you're embarrassed about it like me you can check that out now at Regal Cinemas and maybe see it for free with that Regal Unlimited membership Regal Unlimited is the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits and Regal is offering film spotting listeners endless movies for less.

50:56All you have to do is sign up using the code film spot 25. That's film spot 25. And you'll get 10 % off a three month subscription. It is the only truly limitless movie subscription pass. And you don't just save money on tickets. You also save on snacks. You get 10 % off all non-alcoholic concessions. You get to see any standard 2d movie anytime, no blockout dates or restrictions, we encourage you to sign up now in the Regal app or just click the link in this show description and use that code FILMSPOT25 to receive your discount.

51:37Let's move on now to some titles that actually made three of our choices. and Josh, you're going to do the honors on a film that made your list, made Michael's list, made Allison's. I'm the only outlier here, though. I like the film, just didn't make the cut for one of my favorite films of the year, though. This is one of my favorite filmmakers and someone who I've had the pleasure of talking to many times here on the show. Yeah, it's the mastermind from Kelly Reichert. And I think at least I've seen this stated here and there, it's become common to say we take Kelly Reichert for granted. I think that's true.

52:17Even I came out of the mastermind liking it quite a bit. We talked about it on the show, Adam, but at that point, I didn't really expect it to be necessarily on my top 10 list. And I have to say it's stuck with me. It's deepened for me. And this has been a common experience with her work because it doesn't strain itself to win you over in the moment, Kelly Reichard films. And that's, I mean, in an artistic venture like cinema, that's so admirable to stick to your guns that way and just do what you want to do and let the audience come to you. And yeah, here we are with our top 10 lists and I have the mastermind at number eight because I came eventually to the mastermind.

53:02I think it deepened for me as a character study, but also as a character study that stands in as political commentary. Both of those elements I appreciated on first viewing, but yeah, they've just sunk in with me even more. Josh O 'Connor here playing J.B. Mooney, this former art student who stages a heist of paintings from a local museum. I think he's a particularly American fraud, entitled, self-deluded, oblivious to everything around him, including the Vietnam War protests that are circling everywhere on TV, in the streets. Despite all of that, he still thinks he's the mastermind. And in lieu of all that, the sudden ending, which just kind of like gets dropped on you, and I liked, but didn't fully know what to make of when it first happened, with some distance, it strikes me as this brilliantly bitter chef's kiss.

54:00So yeah, add that to everything I initially liked, O 'Connor's performance, that inventively jazzy Rob Mazurik score. And here it is among my 10 favorites of the year. So I'm eager to hear though, I know Michael, you had it pretty high, but Allison, you had it at number two. So tell me what you loved about the mastermind. I do think like all of her films, it is a grower. Like it is one of those movies I really liked in the moment I got to see it at Cannes. And then the more I sat with it and the more I sat with it, the more I was like, I think this is great. I think this is one of my favorites of hers.

54:36And I think, I mean, in addition to being a movie that I think is very much just about someone reaching the limits of their charm. I mean, that's how I've described it to a lot of people. And I think that is like very much, you know, like I think it's the best Josh O 'Connor performance I've seen so far. though I feel like, I mean, he's been in every other movie lately. So I feel like we're going to get some great ones also coming up. But I think it's such a great use of his like kind of this like hang dog charm where he just kind of gives a look that, you know, it clearly has worked so much in the past where he's kind of like, you're going to give me a pass on this.

55:09And at a certain point, everyone is like, no, you know, you've had enough. You've had enough passes. That's a lot of money. Just hear me out. It's a big life-changing opportunity for me. But I'd have to rent a workspace and purchase tools, which I don't have. That sort of thing. And this is real? Mom, it's real. But I also feel like, I don't know, Riker just said that she feels like maybe the kind of common thread in her movies is the degree to which people believe that they are part of a larger community, you know? And I think that this is a great film in that regard, because it is, yeah, about someone who is kind of like...

55:53coasted into a life he feels no connection to, but has nevertheless acquired a wife and children and a house and a career that he's incredibly noncommittal about as a carpenter and and still kind of feels like he's just trying things out to figure out what like the right outfit is for him you know and and kind of blows up his life with no real plan of what would happen afterwards like this is a heist movie in which the heist happens in like the first quarter of the movie and the rest is just about the unraveling of this character's life and yet you're right it is so much about someone who feels no connection to like the tumult of 1970 that is happening all around him, to the Vietnam War drafts, like to the protests, to the kind of fading of 60s idealism.

56:42And yet he when he decides to kind of conduct his own like private revolution, it is basically just by being like, I'm going to destroy like this like domestic life I have with no kind of idea of what comes next. I'm going to take this leap into the unknown. And I feel like that ending, you know, without spoiling what happens is very much making the point that like, it doesn't matter if you don't feel part of the world, the world will catch up with you, you know, like, um, whether you feel connected to what's going on or not, you live in the world. Yeah. I think it's a terrific movie. Yeah. I mean, it kicked out black box for me.

57:16I saw it. It was the last film I saw essentially under the wire and, uh, it's, uh, it's great. She's, you know, I, I, I, it's also a film that feels like it really gets, not just on a low budget, exactly the right look in a certain sparing way about recreating that period, but it sort of just gets, we don't have to be shown much of this character's life to kind of know exactly what is and is not happening in that life and in that marriage. I mean, he's doing his dutiful maybe 11 % out of the 89 % to the character played by Ilana Haim. It's not a big part, but she's very good at just sort of that woman who's clearly maybe like Hedda Gabler just sort of caught in not much of a life and not much of a marriage and just kind of basically doing 79 % of the work.

58:12And there's a dim sense that this O 'Connor character, he sees a little bit of the Vietnam War on TV if he looks up long enough, you know, from whatever, he's playing chess with his son or something. It's a great portrait in kind of comic self-satisfaction, you know, and just basically, okay, I'll try being a criminal. Let's see how that goes. And yeah, she's the best, you know. I mean, every year, like whatever she's made, you know, pretty much, there it is. It's like Linkletter for you, Adam, I guess. And for me too, most years. But yeah, It's a great, it's, it's a really good little film. I mean, it's better than that.

58:52Cause it's a, I shouldn't say little cause it sounds minor. It's, it's a major Kelly Riker film. It's probably one of the best two or three films she's made. Yeah. They all feel modest somehow just because of the, almost because they're so quiet in their own way. And, and yet they are, they are bigger than that. And I agree that they feel like we should give them more credit maybe than that. I agree with everything all of you are saying, including how great the score is. And I think we all read the character similarly. The one area where I do disagree, and unfortunately we can't get into it because then we would spoil it for people, is I understand the read of the ending.

59:30I still don't like the execution of the ending. I'm out on the ending completely with this film. I am still fascinated by this movie and the character, especially what you said about Reichert and the interpretation of her films that she provided to you, because that does make sense. This tension you can see with all of her characters between individuality and community. And even think about something like showing up, and especially with artists, where I don't want to paint, no pun intended, with too much of a broad brush. But artists by nature may even have to be somewhat solipsistic creatures, right?

1:00:15You have to be in your own head and you have to try to get your obsessions out through whatever art form that you engage in. But then you are also part of – I think this is what that movie is largely about. You are also part of inherently a community, the art community. And you also have family and other obligations and messiness that you have to deal with, right? And so that is the core tension of a film like showing up. And a character like J.B. Mooney in this film, in The Mastermind, is part of a community in the sense that he has his parents and then also his family, but he otherwise seems completely disinterested in having any connection to anyone else.

1:01:00He seems only interested in being an individual outside of and completely disconnected from society and only otherwise using people. And that is interesting in terms of seeing him as a character within the larger framework of Reichert's films. Yeah, she's also got kind of a great, maybe not so casual, interest in kind of a low-medium level of criminality. I mean, First Cow I'm thinking of, which is a film I love, and just the kind of the thievery involved with that, that, you know, is driven by, you know, a lot of different things. But it's a different, which actually makes a great pairing, by the way, with Train Dreams, I think, First Cow.

1:01:41Yes. Just because it's, I love that sort of, yeah, that sort of itinerant, you know, community workplace, but it's kind of a little toxic, a little, you know, a little hostile, a little isolating too. But anyway, yeah, you know, I kind of, what was your first year at Cannes, Allison, when we met? It was like, do you remember? Oh, it was. Oh, something. Yeah, no, it must, I think it was the year, my Blueberry Nights year, maybe. Okay. I'm thinking of the year Wendy and Lucy, Reichert's film, opened at Cannes, which maybe 06, 07. Yeah. And that was, I saw. 08, okay. I saw that fifth film of the day, probably a 10.30 repeat screening that night, and I couldn't quite get the hang of it, and came away just sort of like, well, we'll see.

1:02:29And I was so wrong. You know, that was one of the times where I saw it on like a reasonable amount of sleep back, whatever, six months later when it was in theaters. I was like, huh, missed the whole goddamn thing. I miss the entire strategy and the payoff and this amazing, really delicate sort of handling of the lead performer, Michelle Williams.

1:02:55And sometimes some filmmakers just work, you have to listen a little harder for the motor, for the narrative, and maybe it won't be enough for you. But often it's just a matter of listening a little and appreciating what you have in the meantime. if story propulsion isn't necessarily on the film's mind. She's just a great, she's a very patient filmmaker, but I just found the rewards come in almost every scene she ever directed. So yeah, all the way. Mastermind currently streaming on MUBI and available VOD. So I said I was going to disrupt things a little bit as we're finally getting to the consensus choices, the movies that made at least three lists and one that is going to make all four.

1:03:38And it's a case where there are two titles that only made my list that as producer Sam and I were talking about the structure of this show, it just felt like they didn't quite belong in the batch of other outliers. They seemed like movies that most people listening probably thought would be among the consensus titles of the films of the year. They're movies, in fact, that have already been mentioned by, to prove this point, by our voicemailers and by our listeners when we were sharing our feedback for the films of the year. So first up, I'm going to mention a film that somehow is only on my list as the number seven film of the year.

1:04:29And I'm not putting you guys on the spot or anything, but maybe the three of you can explain why it didn't quite measure up for you to at least be top 10 worthy. And I'm going to maybe I'm going to go ahead and let. Yeah, I'll go ahead and let the great Aisha Harris do the honors and tell us why this movie is her number one of the year. Hey, film spotting. It's Aisha Harris, co-host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour and author of Wannabe. My favorite movie of 2025 has to be hands down, no doubt, Sinners. it is a movie that awed me that made me want to go back and instantly watch it again and in fact I wound up seeing this movie three times in the theaters in something like a nine-day span which is my a record for me I think Ryan Coogler really proved that he has what it takes to be one of our great directors for the long run and he's also one of the only no he's the only director so far who knows what to do with Michael B.

1:05:33Jordan and how to make him a star. And having two Michael B. Jordans here in this movie proves that he is a star. He makes those characters so distinct. And on top of that, he just have a really stacked cast, including Haley Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Woonmi Masaku, the incomparable Delroy Lindo, and then everything from the costumes to the music, to the designs, the saging. It's just one of those movies that I think is really, really going to stand the test of time. And it may not be the most perfect movie of 2025, but to me, it is the one that has the most ambition, that takes the biggest swings with the most amount of resources, and overall just produces this really astounding work that feels both fresh and familiar in the best ways possible.

1:06:21So that's it. Sinners, my favorite of this year. and here's to another year of film spotting. I'm so glad you guys exist. Thank you for all that you do and happy new year. Great as always to hear from Aisha and as usual, she pretty much nailed it, I think. But to recap, Ryan Coogler proved he could be one of our great directors. Michael B. Jordan is certainly a star in this film in a dual role. All of those ensemble players she mentioned And and and maybe even a few she didn't are among the best supporting performances of the year. All of the production elements, including score, are excellent.

1:07:02And fortunately, going back to a term she used, fortunately, as I always say, it doesn't matter if art is perfect or not. I think most of the action in the juke joint when all hell breaks loose is not very satisfying. But Aisha is right. It's one of the most ambitious films of the year. And I love her phrasing that it feels both fresh and familiar in the best ways possible. And even with all that ambition and the scale that Kugler is working on, it is so clearly a deeply personal film. With all of his influences and experiences, they all seem to just coalesce. in this blood-soaked, genre-blending vampire movie.

1:07:44And like Delroy Lindo's character says about the blues, he says, it's magic what we do. It's sacred and big. Somebody take me into old tonight. Blues. It wasn't forced on us like that religion. No, I said, we brought this with us from home. It's magic what we do. It's sacred.

1:08:13And I think there are moments of revelation where Coogler clearly pulls off some magic in Sinners, and it's big. I probably don't have to unpack how it fits within my 2025 framework. It's 1932 when it's set. You have brothers trying to establish a new life after experiencing the horrors of World War I. You've got Smoke trying to move past the traumatic death of his infant daughter. preacher boys struggling with whether to accept the tradition of his father or carve his own path i suppose being bitten by a vampire and being turned into an immortal creature of the night might be a bit traumatic too for some of these characters to deal with and lindo's line about the blues that i mentioned comes during a musical scene one of the scenes of the year where Kugler transports us literally across time, takes us across decades.

1:09:07So for all of those reasons, and for all the reasons that have already been mentioned on this show, Sinners is a film, one of the key crucial films of 2025. And I felt like it had to be recognized as one of the key achievements of the year, but I also just loved it that much. I loved the experience of watching it that much in the theater. And that's why it's number seven on my list. Yeah. Another great theatrical experience. I'm willing to contradict you, Adam, but not Aisha. So I'm not going to get into any quibbles I might've had. It's an 11 through 20. I mean, it's a great movie year. So sometimes things fall out this way.

1:09:45I figured. I mean, I don't know. I'm really mixed on Sinners. I think it's incredibly ambitious. I think it's obviously very loaded with all of these ideas, both like thematically and in terms of just like genre and in terms of the enormous amount of elements that go into this movie. But I think it's also really messy because of that and not always messy in a way that I'm just like, like I love. I think it's messy sometimes. I think even in its central kind of like metaphor, I think it's very mixed in part because I feel like Kugler is still wrestling with it with regards to, you know, the idea of the ways in which the vampires, I would say like vampirism represents a kind of like industry co-option, right?

1:10:28And I think I like the fact that it feels like he is still kind of wrestling with that, but I think it comes through very messily in the movie. And yeah, I mean, I think it's so vibrant. I love the twin Michael B. Jordans. I think it's kind of vision of the past is it does feel like very alive and vital. I think it's kind of silly sometimes, you know. I appreciate that it's willing to go places. Like it does, like it's very fearless about going into places that are a little kind of, you know, corny or silly. But yeah, ultimately I think where it loses me is the action. I think that once it gets into the actual storming of the jupe joint, the action is not that interesting.

1:11:12And I think it kind of, it just like, it lost me there in ways that, yeah. There's something a little mislaid out about some of that. I mean, he's acknowledged the influence of Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn, which is really kind of a low-medium bar to hit. And even if you're going to make a very different type of movie, I think there are times both as director, and I've kind of gotten something out of every single film he's made, and I love most of it. And I really do love a lot of Sinners. And to see it with an audience of mostly students, this is the third time I'd seen it, mainly just to kind of sort out why I did like some things and not others, frankly.

1:11:59But to see it with like 350 people, a sold-out student audience, and to hear the people talking about, all the students talking about that one scene where we get this sort of like this very, for a lot of those young viewers, It was the first time they'd seen a movie just sort of like, okay, we're now going to do a two-minute visual essay on the cultural legacy of not just blues musicians, but every kind of, you know, just how culture gets sort of like passed along and beaten up and stolen and all that. And it's all in this one kind of great fantasy visualization. it's really uh to hear the people talking about that afterwards was a little life-changing for most of them and that was great that was great and i um you know i'm delroy delroy lindal frankly probably the best supporting performance that hasn't been talked about enough all year but it missed my top 10 you know i think for some of your reasons allison i'm not really sure if it all uh feels you know but people are going to say the same stuff and have been saying the same stuff about my number one pick this year.

1:13:09So, you know, I mean, all hail the messy auteur, you know, is kind of the lesson I get really from that. And we would not have gotten that scene in the joint that we're talking about right now, that fantasy leap. That never would have been approved by the producing studio, the producer, unless Ryan Coogler had Final Cut. It wouldn't have happened. Because it's exactly the first thing that would have gone. because it's like too expensive, it's not on story, it's not on plot, get rid of it. Yeah, that sequence is what... But for a lot of people, it's the scene they're going to never forget. Yeah, it's the stuff you go to the movies for, which is why I am so high in sinners.

1:13:50But Allison, your comments are clarifying to me when I think about, as you're discussing the thematic messiness, and I'm thinking about something like Weapons, which we discussed, and how it opens itself up to so many readings, yet somehow doesn't force any of them and none of them really contradict the others or trip any of the others up. And I think that's the sort of clarity. I don't know how a filmmaker exactly manages that. If it's something that the script writing stage or if it's in as far down the line as the editing, perhaps, but it is an area where Sinners gets a bit tripped up is in juggling all the things thematically it could suggest and what it explicitly wants to suggest.

1:14:36Again, not a fatal flaw for me at all in my 11 to 20, but I think as I'm thinking of these movies together is maybe why one rises a bit higher than the other. Yeah. And for me, when we talked about it, I was able to hone in on one or two themes that for me emerged as the most interesting. And I thought there was real clarity there and a lot, not just on the surface, but subtextually as well, that allowed you to really wrestle with it after the movie. The messiness for me was all in the visual filmmaking when it came to the action. And that was the point that started to lose me with the film, but not enough to override what was otherwise so great about Sinner.

1:15:17So let's get back to movies that there's real agreement on in terms of making three lists. And this is one that I have at number eight on my list. But Allison, you've got higher at number four. Michael Phillips, you have higher at number four. And this is a movie that is set in 70s Brazil. It stars Wagner Mora as a tech specialist. He's a professor. He's an educator who's fleeing a mysterious past. And it is the secret agent. Tell us about why you love this film. Yeah, The Secret Agent is Cleber Mendoza-Filiu's story set in 1977 Brazil. As you mentioned, Adam, it's about running afoul of a military dictatorship in Brazil and then watching this character that Mora plays kind of essentially forego his marriage and risk his relationship with his son to hide out, become someone else, and live the undercover life that the title suggests.

1:16:16And what I really like about this film is kind of, frankly, a lot of the, in a very different way, a little of the narrative messiness that we've just talked about with Sinners and some other films. It's another way of saying this film, The Secret Asian, is very different from another very good film set in the same decade, same country, political circumstances, Walter Solis' I'm Still Here from last year. and that, like Secret Agent, covers many years in the life of one family story. That one in a much more straightforward fashion. The Secret Agent, I think, is very clever in the way it doesn't orient you specifically as to the key character's actual full circumstances until the second hour.

1:17:01But the confusion to me isn't frustrating. It's dramatized because you're just sort of with this situation and this character, through all the evasions and half-lies, he has to kind of perpetuate the paranoia, the day-to-day interactions of the scientists, and then it sort of turns into this rattling, you know, the last half hour pays off in a very kind of like rattling suspense sequence that has an ending that you don't really see coming and expect. But I'm a big fan of this film. It's really, I think it's, you know, This is definitely the time, as Richard Brody said in his New Yorker sort of rap for the year, he just said the best films this year were really about power and, you know, who has it and what do you do when it gets ugly?

1:17:56You know, how do we conduct our lives in a way that we can live with ourselves? And that's a little what you get here. It was a huge hit in Brazil, by the way, bigger than Wicked, which is great. So, yeah, I know I'm I'm I was very happy to see it. Couldn't see couldn't see the narrative beats coming. That's and that that I really appreciate. That's the more movies I see. Yeah. You know, I was talking to someone before Q &A, a producer who had said he was really looking forward to this movie, but I was also like, this looks like the most conventional movie that Filho has done so far. And I was like, oh, it's not.

1:18:33Like, I think maybe the trailer had emphasized what happens towards the end where there is a bit of like a kind of showdown. But it is it it has the basic contours of a thriller. It has a title that makes you think you're going to get a thriller. And instead, yeah, it's a much kind of more mysterious, rich, sad movie. about, yes, the idea of, it's not even about resistance, though some of the people who end up in this kind of apartment complex that the main character played by Wagner Mora ends up in are like, have had a political activism, but others just kind of ran afoul of either the government or people like attached to it or just people in their family.

1:19:17It is very much about the idea of solidarity coming through being amongst the people who have been oppressed, being amongst the outcasts, you know, in a way that I thought was really wonderfully done. Especially because, yes, like this main character you learn is not someone who necessarily sought out, you know, activism in any way. He's simply just in trying to do his job as an academic and like do what he believes in ran afoul of powerful people and has been punished for that ever since um i also think that wagner mora someone who i have liked as an actor before but it's just like so compelling in this i think he's just great he's like both incredibly 70s handsome uh running around in uh shirts unbuttoned like much further than is it's present day standard and uh and and kind of uh All of this like shaggy beard and all of that.

1:20:11But it's also just like so there's like this deep like melancholy and to to that character in terms of like being separated from his child, in terms of the loss of his wife. And then in terms of the bookend that's introduced, kind of this this time jump that you see, I don't want to go too much into. But that leads to this like really profoundly sad conclusion that is just not the place that you would expect this to end up at all. And that's what makes it stick, I think. It's so poignant. We could spend so long talking about that, unfortunately. I know. But it's a great movie. It's a thrilling movie.

1:20:50It's a funny movie. It's just, yeah, there's a whole, we didn't even get into the whole kind of side thing involving a leg, a human leg that is found. In Jaws? Inside a shark, yes. This recurring theme of seeing Jaws. Also, the movie theater. that um i mean also like i mean a lot of this film is like also like it's like a grand fictional thing that is born out of filho's like previous film which is a great personal documentary uh and you know i think uh portraits of ghosts uh and it it just it's one of those films that just you can feel him kind of he always makes films dealing with uh recife his like hometown and its history and dealing a lot with the dictatorship as well lately I think he's just one of the most exciting filmmakers working today.

1:21:36It's a case where you guys both spoke to this, but The Secret Agent, the title is completely or almost completely ironic. There's nothing really that's Secret Agent-like about him. And it establishes a certain set of expectations that then the movie undercuts. But there are still some espionage and clandestine aspects to the film at the same time. So we get such a variety of genre thrills, but also surprises. And you're right, it's a deeply sad movie at the same time. And that's where we could really talk about the ending. It is such a gorgeous film just to look at as well. And you talked about the community here.

1:22:19I love, and I think this speaks to just the subtlety of the direction too. I love the touch and I was looking it up or trying to look it up real quick and I don't have the actress's name in front of me. Maybe one of you know who I'm thinking of. But the actress who is also the woman who's also in the apartment complex who's the dentist that he ends up having a sexual relationship with and maybe a little bit deeper than that. But when they meet for the first time, when he shows up and he's being introduced to her and just his, of course, his looks, you're right, Allison, he's a very handsome guy.

1:22:54He's got the shirt unbuttoned a little bit and he's sweaty, you know, and he's standing in the doorway and the older woman introduces him to her. And failure doesn't do anything that we would expect in terms of cross-cutting and a close-up and those kind of furtive glances to suggest, oh, they're attracted to each other. There's nothing like that. But something about it, just in their introduction, they're both attractive. You understand that they're both there, not by choice, that they're people who are probably separated from the people that they love. and we know just from the one look that they give to each other at least i felt like i knew they're gonna end they're gonna end up in bed together you know and i just he doesn't he doesn't need to show us anything more than he shows us and of course about 10 minutes later in the movie we see that in fact that is the case you know if a fake uh dental uh you know procedure is happening and and of course it's really not and yeah it's like the most it's the most preordained affair in the history of affairs.

1:24:03I mean, it's, you know, yeah, yeah. But it is still subtly set up. It's like comic shorthand. It's almost like he's playing around with the title. That's it. It's just like a Bond film, you know, in terms of like the certainty of it. But it's, but of course it's not. It's not, this film, this man's story will not conform to the James Bond, you know, archetypes. Yeah. And that's why it's good. It feels like you're actually living in everyday Brazil at that time. I actually thought some of the visual stuff was a little self-conscious and coy, you know, because there's an aggressive amount of split screen sort of at certain times in the film that actually belongs a little more to the 60s than the 70s.

1:24:40But that's split in here. It's just a little, you know, some of that's a little a little cute for me. But but, you know, these are small. The colors, though. The color is one of those films that's seared. These are small issues. Yeah. Yeah. The color is just seared into my some of the some of the imagery is seared into my brain. And it's another one of those movies for me. Why? Besides how much I enjoyed it. One of the reasons it's on my list, fitting with my theme. And you talked about it. But what kind of country is Brazil going to be? This man who his ideals, he clearly stands for something.

1:25:13And it's sort of like my undesirable friends, too. You can put a lot of power in your ideals. And you can stand up for yourself. But at what point does that power run up against real power or the power of corruption that is willing to do anything, total ruthlessness and lawlessness? And what do you stand for then? How do you fight back against that? What choices do you make then? What is your identity then? That's what this character really has to face and all of these characters have to face in this film. This is a country that is in complete tumult that we witness over the course of The Secret Agent.

1:25:56It's a really fascinating movie, and I'm glad to see that it made three of our lists unlike— and wow, we could just take a lot of the same things we're saying about The Secret Agent and a lot of the other films that we're discussing here on this list, and we could transfer them to actually not only the next movie we're going to talk about, but the movie after that and the movie after that. But we'll get there in due time. Why don't you, Josh, tell us about the next film that made three lists and you have at number two on your list. Let's talk about On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. This is the story of basically a family's grieving process when a woman's uncle is discovered dead on an empty road, middle-class Zambian family secrets start to come to light.

1:26:48It comes from filmmaker Runyano Nioni. And for me, Nioni is probably the most exciting new filmmaker working right now. I mean, this is just incredible stuff. We've been getting her debut, I Am Not a Witch, was this wonderfully bewildering display of African mysticism, maybe magical realism, maybe something else. I mean, part of the delight of her work for me has been experiencing and learning about different cultural cinematic expressions from around the world. Nyoni herself was born in Zambia and then moved to Wales around the age of nine. So here in On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, she's weaving in all sorts of traditions.

1:27:32There are Bemba influences, Christian influences, contemporary pop culture shows up. It's all part of this family stew and she brings an absurdist sense of humor to this. I think she also has a resting eye for unearthly imagery and it's all anchored by a very firm moral conviction on becoming a Guinea fowl. It ends with this bravura reckoning sequence that is one of the standouts of the year for me. So, uh, Neoni doesn't have a project lined up currently next, according to imdb.com at least, But, you know, when she does, I'll be at the front of the line. This is incredible stuff. And I've got her film right towards the top of my list at number two.

1:28:17Yeah, Michael, number nine for you, number nine for me as well. So you're obviously a fan of On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. Tell us why. I thought it was really, really transporting in a way that usually we say we use that word for either just an immersion into some sort of cultural milieu we don't know or a geographic place we haven't seen before on screen personally. But it's also just about sort of, it's a very family attentive movie. And in the end it comes down, I don't want to give it away, but it's not really a narrative plot driven sort of experience. But this relationship about what this woman we meet at the beginning and her cousin, I believe it is, have to the corpse at the funeral, their uncle Fred, as he's called by everybody.

1:29:16It takes everything these women have to break through the kind of family suppression instinct to keep the secrets hidden and to not talk about it and to not risk any disrespect. and you know that's an age old sort of stratagem in storytelling that leads here to a place that is like you say Adam is and Josh I'm sorry is really really kind of cathartic in the best way because it's not it's not easy catharsis and it's not even done in any expected way at all because in a really effortless way in the last, what, 15 seconds of the film you get the explanation of the title. And that's all you need to say about that.

1:30:09But I love it. I love it. It's a movie that's got the nerve of its own leisurely patience to figuring out who in any given room at this kind of like long family funeral weekend who is listening to who, who does not trust who, which side of the family wants to kill who, all of it and it all happens in just like one easy exhalation of breath you know from from a filmmaker who's really really got it going so yeah I can't wait to see the next one yeah for such a new filmmaker to have the control of her vision that she does in this film all the different techniques that she's applying here in terms of the the way the camera moves the different types of angles, the different editing that she uses.

1:30:58There's longer takes, there's jump cuts, there's shorter takes, and even the way the score is employed and the way that she jumps between fantasy and reality at times, I think is really effective. Reckoning, Josh, is exactly the word that I've used before in relation to this film, and the past and present aspect speaks for itself. You talked about that suppression, Michael, in terms of those secrets. We have a main character that Susan Shardy plays so wonderfully who up until this moment and for most of the film is fighting whether or not to let the past enter her mind, to let the past impact any part of her behavior or not.

1:31:39She is otherwise chosen for her identity to be completely separate from what deep down she knows to be true. And the cultural values that we see that have otherwise demanded this type of secrecy and demanded that women in this village, that this type of behavior towards them be allowed is something that is shocking at times to behold when you actually do watch this film. So that's just some of what we see Neoni reckoning with on Becoming a Guinea Fowl, an important film, one of the most important films, I think, of this year. Alison, did you get a chance to reckon with this film? You know, I saw it last year and I liked it, but I really wanted to revisit it and then I didn't have time.

1:32:30So that's mainly the reason why I feel like it was out of my year-end contention. It was just one that I really wanted eyes on again and didn't get a chance to do that. It is available everywhere. VOD. Let's get to, I think we have two more films to highlight here, a couple more voicemails, and then we will throw in some honorable mentions as well. But this is another one of my disruptors, one of those films that only made my list, but is certainly one of the most acclaimed films of the year, been mentioned a few times. And we're going to let our friend David Chen from the film cast do the honors in announcing it, his favorite film of the year.

1:33:12Hey, film spotting. David Chen here from the film cast and the Decoding TV podcast. And right now, my number one film of the year is Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident. It's a movie about the trauma of repressive regimes and how even when the atrocities end and people try to move on, the effects don't just go away. But it's not at all didactic. It's a really well-acted, riveting thriller that has an incredible economy with its script. It's hard for me to think of another film that more effectively marries trenchant themes with the tools of filmmaking. So until I do, It Was Just an Accident is my number one film.

1:33:45Thanks and keep up the great work. Thank you, Dave, so much for your comments and for doing my theme work for me. It is a movie that's about trauma and the trauma of repressive regimes. regimes. And I think it's a resistance movie with characters who, let's say, exhibit an expected ineptitude as they try to handle a politically and emotionally charged situation. And there's also a fair amount of driving involved in the desert. So for me, it feels of a piece with the movie I think everyone knows is coming next. And yes, Dave already did the work, but I'm going to underline it. The past and present and the identity and trauma aspect, they all collide for each of these former political prisoners, the instant they're confronted by the sound of a voice or the sight of the man they believe to be one of their captors and torturers, this man Eggball, who they call Peg Leg because he had a prosthetic leg.

1:34:41And what we witness is the way the lingering effects of that trauma and their anger justifiably override rationality. And Panahi just keeps us guessing throughout. Our sense of truth is constantly shifting. Our sense of justice is constantly shifting along with the characters. It seems clear that we're heading for a reveal that will answer some important questions. Less clear is whether Panahi will be able to deliver a satisfying resolution. And then you mentioned this word, Michael, in relation to I'm becoming a guinea fowl, and I agree it really delivers. The emotional catharsis that is necessary after this intense journey, somehow we get that.

1:35:22We also get the best ending of the year, and then the movie tops itself with a coda that leaves us with the only type of questions the work of this magnitude should leave us with. Without giving anything away, I've been talking about movement from past to present and trying to define a new future. The final shot of this film, I think appropriately, involves a character in stasis. And that's all I'm going to say. I love it was just an accident. And like David Chen, it's actually my number one film of 2025. I loved it that much. Not on your list, though. My outlier. I'm the outlier with that film.

1:36:01But do you I know, Josh, you like it. Are you 11 to 20? It's an 11 to 20 for me. OK, same. I don't like it's not even it wasn't even on my second 20, not because I didn't like it. I think it's more just like it's been one of my like, honestly, the work that he did during the ban, which has lasted for most of the last decade and a half, it's been, I think, incredible. Those are some of my favorite films of the last decade or so. I thought No Bears was so good. I thought This Is Not a Film was just astonishing and sad and funny. And I feel like, actually, I just felt a bit of distance from this in him stepping back from being a kind of persona on camera as well, I felt just a little more distance from this film.

1:36:51Like, I think it's very, it gets at like some really kind of difficult emotions about the kind of like of trying to live with like the rage of being kind of so wronged, you know, and pushed around. And I think it's also very funny, you know, in ways that I think are worth acknowledging. It is both like Death and the Maiden and a kind of road comedy, an absurdist comedy in which more and more people keep piling in this van. But I did feel like I saw the structure of it a bit more. You know what I mean? I think that's the problem. To me, it's just, it's a little, it hits some more, you wouldn't call anything he's made before this like hitting any obvious narrative beats because I mean, it's just, it's nothing, those phrases aren't on his mind.

1:37:39But, and I think this film is actually alive visually in a way that the other films aren't necessarily because he just had a more spacious set of, you know, confined, still under house arrest circumstances, right? I mean, he didn't make this, you know, like in the good graces of the government, I don't think. Right? Am I missing something? Or I forget when he was... The ban had been lifted. The filmmaking ban had been lifted, but he didn't make this with official approval of the government. Just because he was, he just, I don't think we'll ever try and get that. I think a lot of filmmakers who work in Iran, who are on the festival circuit as much as they, yeah.

1:38:18But I think it's sort of a prosaic objection, mine is, but it's a little like the scenes dramatically serve, so many of them serve a very, very similar purpose. So it takes on a somewhat grueling quality that I think feels a little flat to me, in a way that not a minute of any of the films you mentioned, especially this is not a film which I love. So I'm not sure why I didn't quite get in its grip the way it did for, say, you, Adam. I refuse to analyze it. Okay, well, let's keep things moving. We don't have time, unfortunately, to analyze further. All right, let's go, let's go. We've got to get to the film that did make all four of our list, though I'm the outlier putting it at number two.

1:39:04But to help set us up a voicemail here, We're going to combine from Scott Tobias, our friend from The Next Picture Show and The Reveal, and Aaron Neuwirth from a couple different podcasts you'll hear about. They have a number one film of the year, and they also have another film that they want to make sure that we have on our radars. Hello, Josh and Adam. It's Scott Tobias from The Next Picture Show and The Reveal. I have a feeling that my number one movie of the year, One Battle After Another, might be well represented on the show. so I wanted to put it in a word for my second favorite film of 2025, and that's Surat.

1:39:43The film hasn't opened beyond a qualifying week in New York and LA, and I really urge people to see it. Surat follows a father and his young son who are desperately searching for his missing daughter in the rave scene in the Moroccan desert. That's right, I said rave scene. And yet, the world this film feels abstracted and almost post-apocalyptic. It evolves into this beautiful and terrifying survival adventure. It's like Mad Max crossed with Walkabout crossed with The Wages of Fear. I think it's an instant cult classic. Thanks gang. Hey film spotting this is Aaron Newworth loyal listener film critic and co-host of the podcast Out Now with Aaron and Abe and the award-winning two black guys talk Godzilla.

1:40:25I wanted to discuss one of my favorites of 2025 but like Adam, I intend to cheat by mentioning multiple movies in one go. Not having fully locked my top 10 yet, I know it's coming down to either Sinners or One Battle After Another, like seemingly many others. However, as far as a film I'm happy to champion as one of my other favorites, let alone one of my biggest surprises, Oliver Lachey's Surratt, Spain's submission for Best International Feature. What starts as this mission for a father played by Sergio Lopez, the evil general from Pan's Labyrinth, to find his missing daughter, who is somewhere in the Moroccan deserts partying at different concerts, turns into a culture clash road movie requiring the father to team up with a convoy of ravers in hopes of finding her.

1:41:02That said, the film becomes more thrilling as it goes along, and wild shifts in tone and sudden inclusions of government-related turbulence on this journey allow it to explore deeper ideas. Combining elements of Sorcerer, Nomadland, and even Mad Max, Surratt hasn't left my mind, and if anything, the terrific electronic soundtrack by Kenning Ray has only amplified my appreciation for the film. Thank you for another great year in podcasting, and I look forward to 2026. Okay, Surratt, a movie that actually was the last movie I caught up with before sitting down to record this show. And I'm just going to put that in the still processing category.

1:41:38I'm definitely not ready to talk about what I saw in Surratt. But you heard one battle after another. You knew that inevitably, we were going to get there. my number two film, the number one film of the year for the three of you. And Allison, you are going to do the honors of telling us why this is the film of the year. It's funny because I'm like, I don't even know where to begin. It's just, it is just like, it's so much movie. And I think in the best way possible, you know, I think it feels sweeping and funny and touching and exciting and sad, but also, and satirical. But in ways that I feel like he always has Paul Thomas Anderson always has total control over.

1:42:22I mean, I think that one battle after another is the film of the year. And I don't that's not always my criterion for what my favorite film of the year is. But I do feel like in this case, it was an easy pick for me just because it feels like it spoke to this particular moment in ways that didn't feel schematic and didn't feel too easy, you know. And I think one of the things I love about this movie is the way in which it is about this, you know, kind of like clownish, scarred, brain fried, cannabis addled remnant of like this, you know, previous revolutionary group fumbling through, you know, this attack, not really contributing anything except the fact that he raised a daughter who then, you know, goes on to become this inheritor of a kind of revolutionary spirit in ways that I found like incredibly touching.

1:43:15But it's also like this movie is just so packed full of great characters. Benicio del Toro, as you know, sensei has like fought like, like, like won the hearts of so many just because he's so like, competent and so funny. I think the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio's character is like basically yelling for a manager of the revolutionary forces on the phone, while del Toro is around him kind of guiding out all of these refugees through a secret passageway, and then finding a weapon and handing it to DiCaprio, alongside a beer, you know, like that kind of that scene is just so complicated and so perfect.

1:43:52You know, Tiana Taylor as Perfidia Beverly Hills is just like one of the most charismatic people in existence. You absolutely understand why people follow her both because of her revolutionary commitment and because they find her so compelling. Sean Penn as like this kind of grotesque cartoon of masculine kind of like insecurity you have uh you know regina hall as this kind of like the heart and conscience of the film in some ways i think chase infinity is like a great uh it has an incredible debut i think the idea of the christmas adventurers club is so funny and so perfect and so like you know bitterly accurate in its own way and i i think that that chase film that chase scene at the end is just one of those things where you're like you feeling like someone is showing you something new you know it's just it's it's filmed in a way that like has is in conversation with film history but it's also so exciting and so vertiginous and so just like unique uh and i i know that uh someone has already quibbled with the needle drop at the end but i think that needle drop is perfect actually it is so earned um like i cried you know and i think it actually takes the full scope of the movie to earn a needle drop that is so potentially corny as that and that is instead so moving.

1:45:11Yeah, I just, I mean, it's the fun of the year for me. I have nothing to add. Seriously, that was a beautiful recap. I mean, I have, you know, you can quibble, yeah. I think Sean Penn's... Don't quibble, Michael. No quibbling now. All right, tiny, tiny. What do you like about it? Sean Penn slightly unbalancing the film's narrative, I think, because I think they overuse him. There's a couple of scenes of his that serve exactly the same purpose twice, you know, like twice over. And it's a very intense performance, also grotesquely funny, but I sometimes feel like they're slightly overexploiting their antagonist in the film.

1:45:47That's about it. That's my only problem. And, I mean, that's not a problem because it's a pretty fierce and compelling performance. But it's just a beautiful movie to watch in a way. You just realize that even when he struggles a bit as a writer in his career, in my view, Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most fluid, instinctive visual stylists we have ever had. And I mean, he's a guy who believes in the magic of the long take that you don't really notice how long it is and just how damn hard it was to set up. And he's just great. I mean, I just watched this thing purely for the visual pleasure of it.

1:46:26And then I saw it a second time for other reasons, you know, just to see it in VistaVision. But yeah, no, it's my number one. I was actually looking to knock it out. I wanted it out of my number one slot because it was in there from the minute I saw it. I thought Hedda was close, but there we have it. I'm going to shut up now. So Josh, I'm sure you have something insightful to say, and I will certainly give you a minute or two to say it if you would like to. But I'm also going to throw out something because we are a little bit strapped for time. We have to make sure that one of our guests gets somewhere else.

1:46:55We have kept them for a very long time to do this show. I'm going to throw out an idea. There is still so much to talk about with this movie. And even though I put it at number two, I do believe it is the film of 2025. And I've only seen it once. And I want to have more conversations about it. I think we should put on the docket to revisit one battle after another in 2026. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to do that, but I got to talk about it here. It's my number one film of the year. I mean, I actually had a very different top 10 list for this show I was considering. And in honor of Wake Up Dead Man, which my number six film of the year, by the way, I was going to call this my Wake Up America list.

1:47:36I basically wanted all titles that spoke to what we've been facing since January of this year. I mean, we're facing a United States government wantonly wielding violence, abuse, corruption against its own citizens and others in ways that are unconstitutional and anti-American. And I have a few titles on my existing top 10 list we've already talked about that speak to this. I thought about just finding in my 11 to 20, which I easily could, a couple more and just packing the list that way. I didn't go that direction. Didn't want to, you know, commandeer this entire show that way. But this is why One Battle After Another is my number one.

1:48:19It's foremost among them. I have no qualms about it as number one. This is a movie that understands the urgency of the moment, the idiocy of the moment. And most importantly, to that needle drop, Allison, the resiliency it's going to take to survive, let alone turn back the tide of the current moment. So, I mean, I'll be honest, one battle after another, when it came out, it kind of saved me when I was on the verge of political despair. And that may not be a reason for a film critic to put it at number one. But you know what? These are strange times in all sorts of ways. So, so that's what I'm going to do.

1:48:54Yeah. My by far number one film of the year. Okay, well, I'm going to withhold my comments for later. And it will be fun because I actually have, as much as I love the ending, and I don't disagree about the needle drop, I actually think there's something ambiguous slash ambivalent happening within that needle drop. I think there's just a lot to discuss with the film. So we will have to wait to have that conversation for another time because we do need to finish out our list, One Battle After Another, currently available VOD. We have not shared all of the titles that round out our list. There are a few other outliers.

1:49:35Now, it turns out, Michael Phillips, you don't have any other outliers. No, I'm done. I've done my outliers. Yeah, I'm done. We've heard every other title. But to help us transition into these outliers, Mariah Gates, who's been so great on our show these past couple of years, she has a pick that I cannot wait to watch. Let's hear from Mariah. Hi, Adam, Josh, Michael, Allison, Sam, and all you wonderful film spotting listeners out there in the dark. It's Mariah, and it's been a great year for cinema, in my opinion. It's really hard to pick. It's always really hard for me to pick a top film, but I saw this film at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it impacted me so greatly that I didn't cry while watching it, but I definitely cried in the lobby of the multiplex.

1:50:27And then I couldn't do anything for like four hours. And that's how you know a film has really impacted you. It's really gone deep inside of you. So this is Septa Farsi's Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk. I was fortunate enough to talk to Farsi about her film, her relationship with Fatima Hussana, the photojournalist at the center of her beautiful film, and about her sort of intuitive filmmaking technique. And what I love about this film is not just that it is such a stark and beautiful and heart-rending portrait of humanity and connection and resilience, but it's also a beautiful portrait of a friendship.

1:51:15And I think in the end, it's a humanist film. It's a film about knowing that despite all the horrors and everything, finding somebody who understands you and who shares your values and shares your view of the world is the most important thing. And in the end, being there for that person, whether it's over the internet or if you're able to in person. And unfortunately, these two women were never able to meet in person. That is the thing that has value in this world, not money, not influence, not anything else. It's that connection and that shared humanity. So I leave you with this. Allison, you are actually the one who has the most titles that did not make another list.

1:52:04You have three we have not heard about yet, one in passing. But why don't you share with the audience these three films and where they landed for you? Yeah, I do love a wildcard list. One of these, my number 10 pick is Full on Cheating. I will absolutely wear that with honor. It is a trilogy, but they are very much like I think they exist as in conversation in ways that made it hard for me to decide that one was like stronger than another. They felt like they all came together. It's three films by Dag Johan Hagerud. I hope I'm saying that anywhere near the way it's supposed to. another Norwegian filmmaker.

1:52:38It's a trilogy, Sex, Love, and Dreams. And each one is a different scripted film set in Oslo. And each of them is kind of about characters essentially like dealing with, rethinking their ideas about relationships. I think the easiest way to describe it would be to talk about, my favorite was love, I think, of the three. But the easiest way to describe it is to talk about sex, which is the first one. And it was just about two middle-aged men who are both married to women and both have families who find themselves kind of questioning their sexual and gender identities kind of like unexpectedly when one starts having dreams in which a character who is somehow both David Bowie and God looks at him and sees him as a woman.

1:53:28He's aware in these dreams and he's kind of wrestling with what that means. And then another one kind of very randomly has sex with a man for the first time in his life, an incident that he seems to have spontaneously agreed to, and then tells his wife, who is much more upset than he is. He kind of sees it as a one-off that was just kind of something he decided to try. And it kind of then starts having reverberations through their marriage. But like these films are just so gentle and tender, even as they're about people kind of pushing their previously internalized ideas of who they are and how their relationships work further.

1:54:05They are, I think, just like really wonderful. And these were movies I caught up after they were in theaters, kind of with after they were in theaters, but I just, I loved. And then I had mentioned previously, but my number eight is Sound of Falling, a German film that is about four generations of families in the same farmhouse in Altmark, in the kind of countryside in Germany. It is this kind of kaleidoscopic film that starts in the earliest days, which is like kind of right before World War II. But then it keeps like blending together then these different eras. And most of them are seen through these young women in the families, some of whom are just children and some of them are teenagers.

1:54:45And it becomes this almost like a kind of private history of women. You know, much larger events are happening in the background, but these are about all the kind of personal revelations that these women have and sometimes the ways in which they learn about the treatment of women in their respective periods and societies, oftentimes very brutally. It's just a gorgeous, singular, weird movie. It slips between eras. It's just very sensory. I thought it was just incredibly impressive. And then my last one was April, which is a film from Georgia, directed by Dea Kulombagashvili. And it is a film about an OBGYN in rural Georgia, the country, who kind of quietly provides abortions to women, which are like legal there, but like still very morally or kind of like societally frowned upon.

1:55:39and provides treatment for these, you know, teenagers who've been married, for women who have not previously received any kind of prenatal treatment. And it is this incredible performance. Ia Sukeshvili is the main, the actress. It is just about someone who is just absorbing all of this kind of like abuse and kind of like all of these terrible secrets and the ways in which it manifests in this like vision of herself as this monster while at the same time she continues to do this work for the women in the community that is so necessary. And it's against this stunningly beautiful backdrop of the Caucasus Mountains.

1:56:19Yeah, I loved it. And it was a film I saw earlier in the year and it's just stuck with me. So that's the rest of my list. Okay. Josh, the floor is yours for two titles that haven't come up yet. Yeah, I had at number 10, highest to lowest. Spike Lee's still got it even when he's making an old man movie. Love that one. And at number six, as I mentioned, Wake Up Dead Man, A Knives Out Mystery. I think actually we have a voicemail from Tasha Robinson, one of our friends at The Next Picture Show, who also touches on Wake Up Dead Man. Hey, film spotting crew. It's Tasha Robinson from your sister podcast, The Next Picture Show.

1:56:56As of this recording, my number one movie of the year is Rian Johnson's Wake Up Dead Man. But I imagine you're going to get a fair number of votes for that one. So I'm going to take the option you offered to boost a different movie that could use a little more spotlight this year. and that's Bill Condon's Kiss of the Spider Woman. I think for cinephiles, movies that adapt Broadway shows can be a tough sell, and even more so in this year of Our Lord, Wicked for Good. And a movie adapting a Broadway show, adapting a much-respected earlier movie adapting a novel, is a lot of layers for anyone. But regardless of its origins, for me, Kiss of the Spider Woman was a pure cinematic experience, a deeply felt musical love story that's also a love letter to the movies.

1:57:31Diego Luna and breakout star Tonatia play inmates enduring rough and potentially lethal conditions in an Argentinian prison. To take their minds off their suffering, and to work his way into his cellmate's good graces, Tonatia's character Molina describes the plot of his favorite movie, which plays out on the screen in glorious dream theater fashion, with Condon slyly showing us how Molina imagines himself and his cellmate fitting into the story as well. Jennifer Lopez, as the star of that movie within a movie, seems to be getting all the potential awards love. But for me, Tonatia's multifaceted performance is the real standout here.

1:58:02Through him, Kiss of the Spider Woman captures how we project our own fantasies onto the movies we love and how Hollywood glamour can go beyond being a momentary escape. It's a timely film about political protest and resistance, a winning queer love story in an era that needs one, and a big shiny spectacle movie about why we love the movies. I hope we'll see more of it as awards season unfolds. Thanks for everything you do. And here's to 2026 at the movies. Tasha, a big fan, obviously. Wake Up Dead Man, her number one. But then singing the praises, almost singing literally the praises of Kiss of the Spider-Woman, the remake, a movie I did not see this year, and I'm going to be totally honest, I really didn't have any interest in seeing.

1:58:44But after hearing how passionate Tasha was about that film, I'm now really eager to see it. This is a movie that was not on my radar to check out at all. So you can always count on Tasha to, as you said earlier, Allison, to, you know, you had a little bit of a wild card list. You know, Tasha is going to have some wild card picks and there she is with Kiss of the Spider Woman. Okay. Well, speaking of wild card, I've got one and it's the only film that hasn't been mentioned yet. Joel Patrikas, writer, director, co-star, is going to make my list at number 10. It was one of my favorite films of the year at the halfway point, and it is still going to make my list here at number 10.

1:59:31It is Vulcan Isadora. Traumatic two friends venture into the Michigan forest, And the plot summary says they're intent on carrying out a disturbing pact. Yes, they are. It doesn't go well. The two friends are played by Joshua Burge and Patrikus, as I mentioned. They're both playing characters that they've played in other Patrikus films. So they're part of the same universe, though I don't remember Patrikus' character, quite frankly, but I remember Burge, his Marty Jakotansky from Buzzard. And these are characters who have made and they're haunted by bad choices from their past, and they have this plan that we don't know until a good way into the film.

2:00:14And when that plan doesn't go well, the guilt one of them feels is really taken to a very heightened level. You have guys who are in a state of, I suppose, arrested development. They're misfits. They're not fully able to grow up and be the man or the friends or the husbands or the dads that they probably should be. And I was talking to Joel Petrakis a little bit over email about the movie, and his son is in the movie. And I mentioned to him that it feels like a coming to terms with being a dad movie. and he told me a little bit about some of the anxieties that he was wrestling with in the movie and he said, it's definitely my dad fear movie.

2:00:58And he took all these anxieties and balled them all up into, as he called it, this one uplifting sweet story. It is not an uplifting sweet story, but Josh, we both agreed it is a wild and at times disturbing, but also a very moving story. It's profound at times. Had a shot at my list as well and is right there in the 11 to 20 for sure. Okay. Vulcan Isadora making my list at number 10. You can find our complete top 10 lists. All of these picks in order. All of our special guests, voicemailers, maybe even some of the clips that you heard as well. Just go to filmspotting.net. Click on lists. That is our show.

2:01:41Michael Phillips, let's start with you. Thank you so much for, once again, 19th year in a row. You should get a medal or something, certainly, for joining us. A big anniversary coming up next year. Yeah, 20. That's right. We'll have to commemorate that. Let's just save it for that. We'll save it for that. We will. We will. We'll save that. No, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. It was great. I've got many more to catch up on, and I'm happy to look forward to them. So, yeah, thanks. Tell us and tell our audience where maybe they can, I don't know, where can they find you? Where should they check you out?

2:02:08Are you on the socials these days? Yeah, a little, you know, less and less. It's mainly, for now, the steady presence on WFMT's show soundtrack. And I'm doing a little more work for WFMT coming up. So you'll hear me talking, not writing. I think it's a boring thing to be on the radio just writing. So I'm going to talk instead. Fair. Thank you, Michael. Allison Wilmore, such a treat, such a pleasure to finally get to do this with you. I'm so happy I got to finally. Yeah. Where can listeners and viewers find more of your work? You can find my writing at vulture.com. I'm going to be doing a, it was just announced.

2:02:56Just announced. Big news. A mini series spinoff of the Blank Check podcast called Critical Darlings with Richard Lawson, my good friend and an amazing fellow critic. so you can find that in the Blank Check podcast feed. That's going to be happening very soon, our first episode. And I'm not really on the socials either. I guess I'm technically on Blue Sky, but I'm not really on Blue Sky. But if you want to follow my dog on Instagram, that's really the only social media I'm doing right now. It's Instagram.com slash Sammo the Dog. So that's all I got. Sammo is a great follow. Yeah. Also, is he a good dog?

2:03:36Is he a good dog? No, he's not a good dog. He's a bad dog. I love him. He's like a very naughty dog. Naughty dog. Good Instagram follow. There you go. Thank you, Allison. And again, thank you. Michael, hope to do it again next year. All right, man. If you'd like to connect with us on social media, you can find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, Letterboxd, YouTube. He is at Film Spotting. I'm at those places as Larson on Film. We are independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the Film Spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com. You can listen early and ad-free.

2:04:13You'll also get a weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes, and access to the entire show archive. For show t-shirts and other merch, go to filmspotting.net slash shop. Out wide this weekend, you can see Avatar, Fire, and Ash. I said last time I was done with this series and somehow Josh Larson is trying to pull me back in. he's saying we have to review this movie i don't know i don't know commit to pandora adam yeah wow sydney sweeney and amanda seyfried are in the house made directed by paul feig and you know what of the three i would definitely rather watch the spongebob movie search for square pants can we review that i mean i would love to hear your thoughts okay christmas day you can see jack black Jack and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

2:05:04You can see Timothee Chalamet in the number nine movie of the year, according to Alison Wilmore in Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme. Very good movie. And Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson and Craig Brewer's Song Sung Blue. I recommend Song Sung Blue. Crowd pleaser. Legit. Worth seeing. Christmas Day. In limited release on Christmas Day, one of my favorite films of the year, Park Chinook's No Other Choice. You can also see Bradley Cooper's Is This Thing On? I am, I'm pro is this thing on Josh, not, not emphatically pro I'm pro it's worth. So prioritize song, song blue, then SpongeBob movie search for square pants.

2:05:47And that is this thing. It's definitely no other choice than Marty Supreme. And then, and then way down there, you can, you know, go to, go to song, song blue next then SpongeBob. How's that? Even though I haven't seen it. Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Dessau and Sam Van Kahlgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Special thanks to everyone at WBEZ Chicago. More information is available at WBEZ.org. For Film Spotting, I'm Josh Larson. And I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore.

2:06:23Goodbye.

2:06:32film spotting is listener supported join the film spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com and get access to ad-free episodes monthly bonus shows our weekly newsletter and for the first time all in one place the entire film spotting archive going back to 2005 that's a filmspottingfamily.com panoply